Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what recent assessment her Department has made of the adequacy of financial support for parish choristers.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government supports the arts sector, including choirs and singing, through its arm’s-length body, Arts Council England (ACE). For the 2024/25 financial year, ACE has allocated £1.83 million in National Lottery Project Grants to projects classified under 'Choral,' which includes support for parish choirs.
Furthermore, while not exclusively for choirs, the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme offers financial assistance for essential maintenance or works to listed church buildings that may affect the music programme (e.g. repairing an organ). This scheme helps cover the costs and associated VAT for such works.
Additional funding opportunities are available from charities such as the Cathedral Music Trust, The Royal School of Church Music, and The Ouseley Church Music Trust.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to increase support for parish choirs.
Answered by Ian Murray - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Government supports the arts sector, including choirs and singing, through its arm’s-length body, Arts Council England (ACE). For the 2024/25 financial year, ACE has allocated £1.83 million in National Lottery Project Grants to projects classified under 'Choral,' which includes support for parish choirs.
Furthermore, while not exclusively for choirs, the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme offers financial assistance for essential maintenance or works to listed church buildings that may affect the music programme (e.g. repairing an organ). This scheme helps cover the costs and associated VAT for such works.
Additional funding opportunities are available from charities such as the Cathedral Music Trust, The Royal School of Church Music, and The Ouseley Church Music Trust.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on the potential merits of introducing overproduction czars at the local government level that would (a) assess local overproduction of produce and (b) offer it to hospitals and schools.
Answered by Mary Creagh - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Both the Secretary of State and the food minister meet routinely with Parliamentary colleagues and key food organisations to discuss matters relating to the sector.
The Government is taking action to deliver effective management of food production, and we recognise the environmental, economic and social benefits of redistributing surplus food to organisations who can use it. Defra funds and engages a working group of industry and redistribution sector organisations to develop best practice on how to redistribute surplus food quickly and safely, and through our new £15 million farm surplus fund we are working with food producers and charities to ensure more produce gets to those who need it most.
The total amount of surplus food redistributed in the UK in 2023 was 191,000 tonnes, this equates to nearly 456 million meals with a value of around £764 million.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, when her Department plans to announce the opening of applications for the relaunched 2026 Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is working closely with farmers and industry stakeholders to design a future Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer that will better target the SFI in an orderly way towards our priorities for food, farming and nature. Information and plans for the next iteration of the scheme will be published in due course.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what does she plan to set the spending cap at for the relaunched 2026 Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Defra is working closely with farmers and industry stakeholders to design a future Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) offer that will better target the SFI in an orderly way towards our priorities for food, farming and nature. Information and plans for the next iteration of the scheme will be published in due course.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of the Autumn Budget 2024 on the (a) physical and (b) mental health of (i) farmers and (ii) the agricultural sector.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
We regularly liaise with farming welfare charities and industry stakeholder groups to understand the issues affecting farmers mental health and any impacts resulting from poor mental health.
Since 2024, Defra has funded the Farmer Welfare Grant, which supports projects that improve the mental health and wellbeing of farming people in England. The projects are all designed to offer tailored support to farmers and their families as well as prevent further cases of poor mental health by helping to build resilience within farming communities.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he is taking steps to ensure accountability for the equitable provision of palliative care.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
Palliative care services are included in the list of services an integrated care board (ICB) must commission. To support ICBs in this duty, NHS England has published statutory guidance and service specifications. The statutory guidance states that ICBs must work to ensure that there is sufficient provision of care services to meet the needs of their local populations.
NHS England has also developed a palliative care and end of life care dashboard, which brings together all relevant local data in one place. The dashboard helps commissioners understand the palliative care and end of life care needs of their local population, enabling ICBs to put plans in place to address and track the improvement of health inequalities, and ensure that funding is distributed fairly, based on prevalence.
The Department and NHS England are currently looking at how to improve the access, quality, and sustainability of all-age palliative care and end of life care in line with the 10-Year Health Plan.
We will closely monitor the shift towards the strategic commissioning of palliative care and end of life care services to ensure that services reduce variation in access and quality, although some variation may be appropriate to reflect both innovation and the needs of local populations.
Additionally, through the National Institute for Health and Care Research, the Department is investing £3 million in a new Policy Research Unit in Palliative and End of Life Care. This unit launched in January 2024 and is building the evidence base on palliative care and end of life care, with a specific focus on inequalities.
On ICB accountability, NHS England has a legal duty to annually assess the performance of each ICB in respect of each financial year and to publish a summary of its findings. This assessment must assess how well the ICB has discharged its functions.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which 20 companies made the largest tax contributions to the Exchequer in the 2024-25 financial year.
Answered by Dan Tomlinson - Exchequer Secretary (HM Treasury)
HM Revenue and Customs are unable to disclose which 20 companies made the largest tax contributions to the Exchequer in the 2024-25 financial year.
To do so would be a breach of HM Revenue and Customs’ duty of taxpayer confidentiality.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what discussions she has had with Cabinet colleagues on raising the cap for 100% Agricultural Property Relief to £5 million.
Answered by Angela Eagle - Minister of State (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The Secretary of State has regular discussions with Cabinet colleagues on a range of issues, Cabinet discussions are considered confidential.
Asked by: Cameron Thomas (Liberal Democrat - Tewkesbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure equality of access to tofersen by people diagnosed with SOD1 motor neurone disease across England.
Answered by Zubir Ahmed - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent body responsible for developing authoritative, evidence-based recommendations for the National Health Service on whether new medicines represent a clinically and cost-effective use of resources. The NHS in England is legally required to fund medicines recommended by NICE, normally within three months of the publication of final guidance.
NICE has selected tofersen for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis caused by the superoxide dismutase – 1 (SOD1) gene mutations as a topic for guidance development through its Highly Specialised Technology (HST) programme. The HST programme appraises medicines for the treatment of very rare, and often very severe diseases, and evaluates whether they can be considered a clinically and cost-effective use of NHS resources. NICE has not yet been able to start the evaluation of tofersen as it is unable to issue guidance on the use of the technology without receiving an evidence submission about the technology’s clinical and cost-effectiveness from the marketing authorisation holder. Therefore, NICE is ready to review tofersen via its HST programme, as soon as Biogen indicates that it is ready to start the NICE evaluation.
I am aware that the marketing authorisation holder has established early access programmes (EAPs) through which some patients are currently accessing tofersen. Participation in company-led schemes is decided at an individual NHS trust level and under these programmes, the cost of the drug is free to both patients taking part in it, and to the NHS, but NHS trusts must still cover the administration costs and must provide clinical resources to deliver the EAP. No assessment has been made of regional variation in access to tofersen through the programme.
NHS England has published guidance for integrated care systems (ICS) on free of charge medicines schemes, providing advice on potential financial, resourcing, and clinical risks. ICSs should use the guidance to help determine whether to implement any of these schemes, including assessing suitability and any risks in the short, medium, and long term. The guidance is available at the following link: